that guy is very confused and misguided. i read the article. he has totally lost sight of what Magic is all about: having fun. i totally disagree with him on the Cedric debacle. i agree with Maro from his Twitter:

Maro on Twitter wrote:Magic should not be "I know what you mean & you know what you mean but you said it technically inaccurately so you're screwed." 11:15 AM Jul 1st via Echofon Retweeted by you and 14 others

If you're the better player, win by playing better not by taking advantage of opponent's lack of technical verbiage. about 22 hours ago via Echofon Retweeted by you and 7 others

Do you honestly believe Cedric didn't know that his opponent was attempting to draw two cards? 11:36 AM Jul 1st via Echofon in reply to SamuelHBlack

i don't give two shits if it was at a kitchen table, at FNM, or a REL 1,000,000 tournament: the fact remains that a professional player couldn't have failed to realize that his opponent wanted to draw two cards from Esper Charm, and not make himself discard two cards. each player is striving to win, and it should be inferred that the most beneficial mode was chosen, regardless of targeting templates.

...oh and if anyone tries to disagree, rest assured that since the Director of Magic Design is on my side... i'm sure we won't be seeing Esper Charm-like cards in the future without all modes using targeting.

Maro on Twitter wrote:Let me be clear. The biggest mistake is that we made a bad templating decision. Modes need to act similarly. about 22 hours ago via Echofon

I completely disagree with article and agree whole-heartedly with Steve on this.

What if you are playing against a foreign MTG player and he slips when talking because English is not his first language?

Meddling Mage my "Python Needle", okay. Well that is an illegal MTG card name, so you fail and I win by default.

That's a cheap trick to pull over people and to take advantage of someone slipping up when they are talking. You obviously understand that he is Charming to draw, its not like he dropped the Charm and didn't say anything. You obviously understand what he means and trying to turn the situation into a win for yourself makes you look like a douche bag and takes the fun out of a god damn game.

Reading that article made me want to do nasty stuff.

~Zuty

Last edited by MidniteEffort on Fri Jul 02, 2010 1:54 pm; edited 1 time in total (Reason for editing : gross)

MidniteEffort wrote:he has totally lost sight of what Magic is all about: having fun.

Sounds good. Get back to me when you have the definition of "having fun" that all magic players agree on.

I'm just tired of the argument that tournament magic is not fun, and casual magic is fun. I'm also tired of its counterpart that tournament magic is real magic, and casual magic is a waste of time (or even the inverse that tournament magic is a waste of time, and casual magic is real magic).

I agree with him on the "soft ban." It's one of the things that has really turned me off of EDH. Ken Krouner said it best as a response to the YMBAEDHDB tweet: "You might be an EDH Douchebag if you think your strategies are fun and other people's are not." I love it when we get a mass land reboot in multiplayer. Sure, sometimes one player just jumps ahead and wins, but it's not because they're being unfair. And yet, Armageddon is frowned upon in EDH. Not banned, but frowned upon.

As for inferring that the most beneficial option was the intended one, I think it opens up a whole can of worms. It blurs the line of what a judge's role is. I do think that some of Cedric's examples were pretty shady (In the example of his Mindbreak Trap jedi mind trick, I'd be interested to know if he consistently played Empty the Warrens, waited, and then said "Storm trigger on the stack"), but should the judge's job really be to first ask "So what were you trying to do?" and then back up and correct the play?

I remember when Academy Rector and Cabal Therapy were in Extended together, I was warned that when I flashback the Therapy by saccing the Rector, not to name the card before I find my free enchantment. Why not? Because the Rector's triggered ability goes on the stack above the Therapy. By naming the card first, I'm announcing the Therapy is resolving and I'm opting not to use the Rector. As soon as I name a card with Cabal Therapy, my time to get the free enchantment is over. How does this fit in with choosing the most beneficial option? Should the player be allowed in a tournament to back up and resolve the Rector's trigger?

Granted, when the issue is more semantic ("Use Profane Command to give fear to all my legal targets"), it gets dicier, but it's still a fine line, and I'd rather err on the side of the rules than the intention.

Slyphidine wrote:Sounds good. Get back to me when you have the definition of "having fun" that all magic players agree on.

"having fun" casts a wide swath in this game, i agree. but in this situation, i don't think it was fun for anyone involved. the victim of rules wrangling obviously couldn't have had fun getting called on such a stupid thing, and assuredly the offender isn't having fun suffering the backlash from half of the Magic community.

Slyphidine wrote:I'm just tired of the argument that tournament magic is not fun, and casual magic is fun. I'm also tired of its counterpart that tournament magic is real magic, and casual magic is a waste of time (or even the inverse that tournament magic is a waste of time, and casual magic is real magic).

that whole argument is a waste of time; it really has no definitive answer, of course. the true argument lies in whether you can still have fun in winning or losing. all of Magic can and should be fun. however i think that whether you're a Spike or Johnny/Timmy, your level of fun had shouldn't be contingent upon whether or not you win. if you play an entire weekend at the kitchen table or in a tournament, and ended up scrubbing out the whole time, and then you feel like the whole weekend was a bust and you didn't have any fun, you're doing it wrong! even a seasoned tournament player can enjoy remarkable plays, interesting interactions, and just the opportunity to play the game, whether they win or not. i guess that's where i am. when people can't handle losing and doing so makes them all Mopey McMoperson, then they do cheaty things like this to prevent such a situation. that's really what i have a problem with.

or maybe fun isn't a factor. maybe people like this stopped having fun playing Magic long ago.